California State University, Fullerton

CSUF applications are now closed (Oct. 1-Nov. 30, 2023). 
If you completed a University Application prior to Nov. 30, you may still submit prescreen applications for late consideration. Otherwise, please join us for the Fall 2025 audition cycle!
Welcome, prospective Titans!

Cal State Fullerton's Department of Theatre & Dance offers multiple pathways for student success in theatre, including:

• Acting BFA concentration (BFA Theatre)
  The CSUF Acting BFA concentration prepares students for a professional career in theatre in plays, musicals, television, and film. The program seeks students who exhibit talent, motivation, and commitment, and combines rigorous coursework with ample opportunity to apply the training in performance throughout their four years. Fourth-year students prepare websites, build reels, and meet casting directors and agents in Los Angeles and New York in preparation for an effective transition from college to a professional career in theatre, television, and film. Audition required.
  
  
• Devised Performance and Physical Theatre BFA concentration (BFA Theatre)
  

  One of the first of its kind in the United States, our Devised Performance/Physical Theatre BFA concentration graduates actors prepared for the creative and professional challenges of the 21st-century – collaborative theatre artists who conceive, design, direct, and perform highly athletic, visually stunning, interdisciplinary projects that shape today’s evolving theatrical landscape. Integrating aspects of theatre, film, design, music, performance art, and emerging technologies, students create original and adapted performance works through intensive and multi-dimensional collaboration. They graduate with specialized skills incorporating the emotional availability, creativity, and transformational capacity of an actor, the athleticism and physical expression of a dancer, a choreographer’s eye for shape, movement, and balance, a director’s sense of conceptualization, collaboration, and leadership, a designer’s vision for sound, place, image, and light, and a writer’s focus on language and story.

  This community-based training cultivates the highly marketable skills of emotional intelligence, initiative, problem-solving, and leadership. Devised Performance/Physical Theatre actors perform new works or adapted scripted material in our Main Stage season. 4th-year students participate in an international or unique capstone project and showcase. Site-specific performances, community outreach, and career preparation round out this innovative actor training. Audition required.

  
  
• Musical Theatre BFA concentration (BFA Theatre)
  The Musical Theatre BFA concentration prepares students for a professional career in theatre both in plays and musicals, and television and film. The program seeks students who exhibit exceptional talent, motivation, and commitment, and combines rigorous coursework with ample opportunity to apply the training in performance. The program has been newly redesigned to meet the needs of students in the rapidly changing 21st-century entertainment industry; it is a rigorous, 4-year, conservatory-style training model with a well-balanced curriculum of acting (for both contemporary stage and camera), singing (including foundational music skills and 8 semesters of private voice), and dancing/movement (celebrating all levels of skill and a diversity of styles ranging from ballet, jazz, tap, modern, musical theatre, hip hop, and more). Fourth-year students can expect to travel to NYC for a capstone showcase performance, as well as industry workshops with Broadway talent, and industry professionals including casting directors and agents. Audition required.
  
  
• Theatre BA 
  The Bachelor of Arts in Theatre provides the opportunity for students to focus on the breadth of theatre studies. The curriculum core requires study in acting, directing, design and production, history, literature, and theatre criticism. Students are required to participate in department production activities, including plays, musicals, dance, and opera. After core requirements are met, the Theatre BA degree is a "choose your own adventure"-style training model centered on electives that may include acting, musical theatre, dance, voice & movement, stage management, design, dramaturgy, playwriting, directing, theatre education, theatrical hair/make-up, technical theatre and emerging technology, and more – all based on the interest(s) of the individual student. BA Theatre students with special interest in performing are encouraged to audition for all campus productions. No program audition is required. Theatre BA candidates need only submit a University application (they do not need to use the Accept'd platform).

Why CSUF?
There are many fantastic reasons, but here are a few highlights...

Location: 26 miles outside of Los Angeles. Commutable to countless professional theatres and the mecca of the film/television industry. Average temperature of 70 degrees in the winter (85 degrees in the summer). 15 minutes from Disneyland. 30 mins from the beach. 2 hours from the desert, the mountains, or the Mexico border. Southern California has it all!

Campus: Fullerton is the largest CSU campus with over 42,000 students. Robust and nationally recognized sports teams, if you're into that, with an adorable elephant mascot, Tuffy the Titan! State-of-the-art fitness center, student union, and recreation center. 26-acre Fullerton Arboretum, our very own nature's oasis!

Performing Arts Center: An original 1964 campus design, with an attached state-of-the-art modern theatre complex (circa 2006), boasting six performance venues including a proscenium stage, a 3/4 thrust, two black box theatres, and two concert halls. Theatre classrooms, dance studios, a television studio, and individual practice spaces also support the performing arts students' learning experience. 

Productions: The Department of Theatre and Dance supports eight mainstage productions per season, at least four "Studio Series" (smaller) productions, in addition to recitals, student-run showcases, improv performances, and other class projects, offering ample performance opportunities throughout the year.

Faculty:  Study with award-winning Broadway, off-Broadway, national tour, television and film actors, directors, playwrights, and more with an average 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio.

Alumni: CSUF Theatre alumni have gone on to all varieties of jobs within the entertainment industry ranging from Broadway and film/TV actors, casting directors, film editors, theatre/film/tv technicians, professional directors, educators, and so much more. At CSUF, we foster and celebrate all of these diverse career paths.

Cost: California residents will enjoy less than $35,000 in tuition for all four years of world-class theatre training at CSUF. Non-California residents may expect to spend roughly $80,000 in tuition for all four years. The CSU system is also friendly toward transfer students, particularly those from California Community Colleges. 

Be a #Titan! Join us!
Accept'd applications and CSUF University Applications are open Oct. 1-Nov. 30!Application Deadline for Fall 2024 Admission: Nov. 30, 2023